Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - BONUS EPISODE: Mike Ghesser: A Father's Mission to Transform the World for Neurodiverse Individuals

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Send us a text Imagine meeting a neurologist who changes not only your perspective but the entire trajectory of your family's journey. That's precisely what happened to Mike Ghesser, co-founder of CleanLogic, when his daughter Rosie was diagnosed with a neurodiverse condition at just three months old. In this heartfelt episode, we explore how that pivotal moment led Mike and his wife to become devoted, therapy-focused parents, ultimately inspiring the creation of CleanLogic—a company that champions inclusivity by offering meaningful employment opportunities to individuals with disabilities. Our conversation continues with a deep dive into the world of inclusive education. Mike shares his family's experiences moving from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to find the best resources for Rosie, highlighting the power of an educational environment where students with disabilities learn alongside their neurotypical peers. Through these stories, we emphasize the importance of focusing on abilities rather than differences and the broader societal changes needed to foster true inclusivity and accessibility in everyday life. Finally, we explore how Mike's personal journey has translated into groundbreaking employment initiatives at CleanLogic. Driven by a partnership with Isaac Shapiro and inspired by Rosie's progress, Mike discusses how the company has adapted roles to leverage the unique skills of individuals with disabilities. From sewing to manufacturing, we showcase the potential unlocked when people are given the right opportunities and support. This episode is a powerful testament to the transformative impact of shared experiences and the stories that inspire us to believe in our capacity to change the world, one inclusive action at a time. https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World. Today, we have the pleasure of hosting Mike Gesser, co-founder of Clean Logic.

Driven by his daughter Rosie's neurodiverse experience, Clean Logic has developed a commitment providing inclusive opportunities for individuals with disabilities. His story is captivating, and I'm delighted to have him on the show. Thanks for coming on. Sure. What started your journey of helping autistic people and special needs? Sure. Interesting story.

So I have three daughters, my oldest Rosemary. She's 11 years old. When she was born at about three months old, we discovered that she was disabled. She is physically disabled and intellectually disabled and neurodiverse. And me being a first-end parent at the time, I had no idea what that meant. My wife was very quick to recognize missed milestones or things like that. She had an indication, and I was just like, I didn't know anything. But she started to point it out, and I said, okay, well, whatever, she'll be fine.

The older she got, the more we kind of started to see things, the more I realized that, okay, well, there are some differences. There was an incident that happened when she was three months old. I was at work one day and my wife called me frantically. I answered the phone and she's like, Rosie's having, her name is Rosie. She's Rosie's having a seizure. And I'm like, well, call 911. So I called 911. I said, I'll be home soon.

When I got home, she was getting into an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Fortunately, we lived close to the hospital. We lived in Los Angeles at the time in West Hollywood. There was a hospital called Cedars Sinai, not too far away. When I got home, she was being put into the ambulance and fire department was there and they're like, follow us to the hospital. When we got there and they ran a bunch of tests, it wasn't a seizure. Fortunately, it was a rare neurological disorder. What was interesting about that experience for us, we were there for a few days is there was a doctor, a very well-known child neurologist that we finally got to see.

and her name is Dr. Naparko. She came into our room and examined our daughter and she said something that I'll never forget that really kind of shaped who I am, what I do, why I do the things that I do today. And she said, she looked at my wife and she said, listen, she goes, you're not going to be a soccer mom. You're going to be a therapy mom. And she did it in, she was matter of fact. And it was rough to hear at the time, but she was right. She was 100% right.

That's tough to hear for sure. So once you heard that from the doctor, what was your next steps? Immediately after we got out of the hospital, we started looking at therapies for my daughter, and we got her physical therapy and occupational therapy. And we put her in an early intervention program a little while later at UCLA Hospital. It was there that I started to see Rosie make a lot of progress. And it was there that I started to see her around her peers. There were a lot of other children there with all disabilities.

There were children on the spectrum. There were Down syndrome, children, children with other physical disabilities, mobility issues, you name it. That's where I started to see they were still able to do the same things that. typical children were doing they were just doing them a little bit differently they would you know they would have equipment accessibility you know my daughter part of her condition is she was she's a low muscle tone and so she had difficulty sitting and then standing and they had like a stander that she would use to help her strength and her muscles all sorts of things like that with all that happening how was it affecting you what was your thought process moving forward i started to think about her

future, right? Like, I knew that she was going to be disabled, and even though she was still young, I didn't know what that looked like, but I started thinking about seeing like the early intervention, but what does kindergarten look like and what does elementary school look like in middle school and high school? And ultimately, what's after that, right? Where, when they graduate high school, where do they go? I run a company and I'm very like entrepreneurial and a planner. So I started to look into the future for my daughter, but specifically, like, where do people with disabilities go afterwards? And there's a lot of programs. There's a lot of things that they have. But I wasn't able to find something that I felt from a parent's perspective that was right for my daughter. And granted,

she's at the time, two, three years old. Today, she's 11, and she's not even close to being out in the workforce or anything. But I immediately went into like planning. Several years later, we moved from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. That's where we started to put together. Essentially, what I thought was a company, my company, Clean Logic, that was an accessible and inclusive environment for people with all different kinds of disabilities, intellectual, physical, people on the spectrum, things like that. And that's kind of how my daughter created the inspiration. in me, my purpose to do what I do today. That's a great story.

Now, you mentioned school. Was she in private school, public school? How did you set that up so that she was able to integrate with other kids so not to be in isolation because of her situation? Good question. So our daughter's always been in public schools. The early intervention program at UCLA in Los Angeles, I don't remember exactly how we got there, but it was, we got a reference and it was, I want to say, a program through insurance

or through the school, through UCLA, the college. And then after that, we sent her to a public school in our neighborhood. We lived in Studio City at the time, amazing school, Dixie Canyon Elementary, and they had a, I think it was called the Pals program, preschool for all learners. It was public, and it was very well run. After she was going to go into kindergarten, That's when we moved out to Philadelphia. That's interesting. Was there a specific reason why you moved to Philadelphia? The reasons we moved out here.

We actually live in the suburbs. We wanted to move to a suburb called Tridifrin East Town. That school district, because they had an amazing program for Rosie and for her needs. We put her in the public school in Tridifern East Town. That program is even more amazing than the one that we were in in Los Angeles. my expectation is she'll continue to go to public schools in Tridifrin in our school district. They just have a very incredible focus on integration. She's in a life skills program, teaching her life skills, but also putting her into the classrooms with typical children.

She has a very good mix. She gets the therapies that she needs. She learns her life skills. And then she participates in classes with all the other children. That's a great thing for sure. how is it working for your daughter? When schools integrate autistic people, people with mental health, disabilities,

anything like that, it really is confusing for some of the kids and even for some of the teachers because they don't understand it, but the kids definitely don't understand sometimes and that can create some issues within the classroom. So how is that working out for her with how you've handled it so far?

Yeah. So it actually worked out incredibly well. And I think this has a lot to do with the program that they have at the school. It's not just about putting a child with special needs in a class with neurotypical or able-bodied children. They educate them. They tell them, you know, who the student is and what their disability is. And they teach them about disabilities early on. So it's not like, you know, it's they normalize it as much as possible. My daughter has a one-on-one. that's with her all the time to help with that transition. I mean, she's obviously different than everybody else is, but she's not treated differently. I think that's one of the things that I think successful programs do well is it's something that's always part of the educational process, not just for the student with disabilities, but for every single student. And accessibility is huge within those schools. And I think it's about not making it a special thing and treating every child just as

they're the same. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I think that's just a great way to look at things. Unfortunately, we don't live in a society that accepts that the way it should. Yeah. But it's something that definitely needs to be taught for sure. I agree. The school system actually is the perfect place. If they work together, show these kids that anyone with disabilities are exactly the same,

they just handle things a little bit differently, they could create that bridge for future change. It does. It does. I completely agree. And I think a lot of schools that are successful with this program do well is they show that everybody has something to offer. Everybody has a voice, regardless of whether you're disabled or not. Everybody has something to teach another person. I think that's the foundation for it.

Absolutely. It sounds like to this point, everything has worked out pretty well for her. her. So far? When we have programs out there, we lay it out, we try and make it as comfortable, easy as possible with a good transition, but real life says there's going to be bumps in the road. What have you come across with bumps in the road that you didn't expect? And then when they came up, what was your resolution to them so that the people listening can hopefully gain from some of the things that you went through.

Sure, yeah. The biggest thing that kind of was an eye-opener for me is the world itself was not built for people with disabilities. You know, everywhere I go, I realize the obstacles that someone with the disability faces. And while there's so many, you know, amazing pieces of accessibility that are brought up, you know, all over the place, there's, it's still, it's still difficult. It's still different. For example, going to the beach, right? Typical people can just go to the beach and walk to where you want to go sit down on the sand, but my daughter has mobility issues. And for a long time, it was very difficult to be able to. to get her to where she needed to go on the beach. And I never realized what that was like until I'm having to get to the beach, things like that.

But there's a wheelchair, for example, that's meant to be put on sand that helps bring her to where she needs to go. But it's something extra. Going out to dinner, there's ramps that allow you to move up, you know, walk up to where you need to go. But sometimes when you're walking through a restaurant, the space between the tables just does not accommodate. So there's so many things that you do on a regular basis that without a disability don't even realize and take for granted. You can just go where we want. But once you're in that scenario, it's just very difficult. I can't unsee things.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, completely. You just said it. We take things for granted. Here in the U.S. and in places around the world, we go about our lives, not thinking about anything. unfortunately we don't think about it until it affects us then when it affects us we are more compassionate and more understanding but unfortunately it takes that to happen to us before we start taking action yeah then when it does affect us the world becomes very scary we don't know what to do what do next

how things go the process it can be very scary what would you tell a parent this just finding out that their life is going to change? They have a child that's just been diagnosed, and it doesn't matter what the diagnosis is. It could be autism. It could be mental health. It could be bipolar. It could be Down syndrome. MS.

Anything like that is very scary. The parent has to collect themselves, get their heads together, know what to do, and it's a tough road. what would you give them for advice so that they could kind of map out what to do that best helps them and helps their child? Yeah, you're never prepared for this. It's not, nobody goes and says, I feel like having a special needs child. You know what I mean? But when it happens, like when you find out about it, it's kind of like an adjustment period, but I got to tell you, it's the biggest blessing you'll ever get in your entire life.

It took me a minute to accept this or realize how true it was, but God gives special babies to special parents. That might not be comforting to some people, depending on the severity of this disability of their child. But for me, it was a realization and kind of opened my eyes up to seem internally, like inside me, what I'm capable of doing as a father and the amount of love and patience and understanding that I never knew that I had to, be able to give my child the best life possible and to have a kind of love that you don't know that could even create. The other thing that it helped me realize was what an opportunity a parent of a special needs child has to change the world, right? You're dealing with something or you're exposed to something or you're now part of this world that not everybody is. You will see the world differently. You will experience life differently. You will see other families, other children very,

very differently, and not in a bad way. You see the world through a very different lens. And it's an amazing lens to see the world through. But it gives you a superpower to go and advocate for your child and take care of your child. And by doing that, you're changing the world. You're bringing awareness to things that the majority of the world doesn't see or experience. No one's going to argue with making the world a better place for kids, for adults, right? And like little things, accessibility things, they're so important, and it just needs more voices. It's going to make everybody's life better. You've been given a gift in a way. Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. That's a great point. Now, she's 11, right? Yeah. What do you see for her in the next five years? She's going to be going

through her teen years, which is tough for even neurotypical people. So what do you see for her through her teen years and then pass that once she gets out of high school? What's on the horizon for her? So she's incredibly smart and incredibly aware. The way I describe Rosie is she understands everything. Her input is incredible. She has different. with her output, whether that's speaking or whether that's walking or things like that, but there's so many types of accessibility options out there that help her become independent and successful, right? And so I think for her, as she goes through school, she's learning how to use more and more of these tools. For example, technology is amazing what it can do. She

uses an AAC device to speak. And as she gets older and works with the amazing team, like her ability to communicate, whether it's through her AAC device or not, is mind-blowing to me. And I see her continuing to get better through practice. Her social skills, like this kid is incredibly funny. She's a comedian, loving, and sarcastic. For a kid that can't talk, it's amazing how much, how well she's able to communicate. But she's going to go through school and continue to make friends and impact people and, you know, she'll advance just like every other child advances, but in her own way. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely.

The further along she goes in school, the more opportunities are going to open up to her. I'd love to see her develop more of her interests. She loves technology and she loves electronics, which is interesting to me and fascinating. And who knows what she'll end up doing with it. But every other 11-year-old, 12-year-old continues to advance. in school and pursue their interests. The education process where we live is pretty phenomenal. I haven't really looked yet at what colleges have for her, but if she wants to and she expresses

interest in that, we're certainly going to do that. If she wants to work somewhere, you know, I talk about how I created the accessibility within my business. So one day she could work there. I don't know if she's ever going to want to work at my company. We have an interesting father-daughter relationship, and I'm not so sure how that would work at the company, but whatever that kid wants to do, I'm going to support her and encourage her and give her all the tools that she needs to be independent and successful, however that looks.

Yeah, that's good. Now, you mentioned your business. You started this business with the sole purpose of creating an environment for those with special needs that need help and need work. Can you expand on that a little? Sure. It actually evolved into that today. Quick backstory, my company is called Clean Logic, and I have a business partner, and his name is Isaac Shapiro. When I met him, he was my first exposure into the world of disabilities, and his mother is blind. When we first started working together, we created a nonprofit. What we wanted to do was take profits from our business and donate them to the nonprofit from Clean Logic and donate them to the nonprofit called Inspiration Foundation and give adaptive technology awards to blind and visually impaired people. who wanted to get back into the workplace.

So we did that for a while and I was always thinking in the back of my mind, why aren't we creating jobs? This is before I was married, this is before Rosemary was born. But I was always thinking like, why don't we just create jobs? At the time, our business was small and we were struggling and we weren't in the position. We didn't even have employees at the time. It was just him and I, but it was always lingering

in the back of my mind. And then I met my wife. We had Rosemary until she was a couple of years old that I started to think what that looked like. That's when I started a plan. We just weren't in the position to really do anything then. And this was 2011, 12, 13, 14. And in 2019 is when we moved from Los Angeles to the suburbs of Philadelphia.

And we opened up our own facility rather than outsourcing a lot of our work. We took it in-house. And for me, that was the time that I knew that I could control how we built this program. And I had a great team. Our business had grown significantly. and on a great team that supported our vision. We were finally able to, I want to say it was the end of 2021, where we started working with Overbrook School of the Blind. They had a work experience program for some of their students and they came in a couple hours a week to

get real life experience working in a company. When I saw the fact that we could do this, not just in theory, but in practice, that's when it kind of like the doors blew open and what else can we do and what else can we do and how can we create more jobs and what type of an impact is this doing and originally we had gift sets and things that we you know wanted to put together for promotions like little jobs but then we started teaching skills training skills like our company clean logic makes skincare tools like exfoliating towels and gloves and sponges and things like that and we wanted to essentially not only create jobs for people with disabilities but bring jobs back to the United States. Some of our products are made out of fabric. And so we started to value added,

like, manufacturing here. So where things were getting sewn at another factory, we would do the sewing here at our facility. And so we said, well, let's see if they can sew. All the students were blind or visually impaired. And we said, can you guys sew? And they're like, well, let's give it a shot. And they did. And they were great at it. We then looked at, okay, well, what else can we do? And so there was, what we realized is there's nothing they couldn't do. We just needed to give them the opportunity. So it became one process and another process and another process and another process. And then we started opening it up to seeing more what we could do.

And we started working with OVR, the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation in Pennsylvania. And they introduced us to job seekers. And I sit on the board of an organization called Neurodiversity Employment Network. And that's about connecting neurodiverse job seekers to employers. Since I'm an employer, it was easy for me to say, okay, well, let's create a job, let's give it a shot. And there's really no playbook. There's no right way to do it. Everybody's different and every job is different.

But I think what made it easy for me was that here's my daughter. And I understand what her disability is. And I understand what accessibility means and how it's helped her become more independent and successful. And I looked at accessibility as an opportunity. So I brought it into the business. We would just try things. And if it worked, great, let's try more. And if it didn't, we'd look at why didn't it work?

What can we do differently? Or how can we fix this process to make it a little bit easier? And someone who's blind needs something different than someone who's on the spectrum or someone who has a physical disability. The only way you're going to know is to try, give the opportunity, and then ask questions. That's the approach that we took. And that's how we evolved with Clean Logic to do what we do today. And today we have 30 people with all different types of disabilities, sewing, assembling,

using being machine operators, they're working in our office, they're processing orders. It's not just manufacturing. It's inside our office, too. There are so many jobs that anybody can do anything. And that's the approach that we take. That's awesome. there are so many people that need help. I mean, if you look at just autistic people,

70 to 90% are either unemployed or underemployed. Correct. So what you're doing is open the doors for so many people, and that's just a great thing for everybody. Yeah, and clean logic itself, my business, yes, I want to grow it, and I want it to be a successful business, and I want to create meaningful employment for people with disabilities, and also people that don't have a disability.

By doing this over the years, what it's kind of instilled in me is, I want to show for-profit businesses that you can hire people with disabilities, and it's actually going to be a bigger benefit than you think, and it's not as scary as you think. So basically what we're doing in Clean Logic is we're creating a model that I just want to share with people.

It's not a secret. It's not something that I just want to like, this is how we do and you can't see it. I want all for-profit businesses to see what we're doing and say, it's not difficult. It's not scary. Do you know what I mean? Because I think that that's how you can make significant and meaningful change in the world. And that's what we're out to do.

Yes, and it's very inspiring. People like you hopefully will show others that this can be done. And if you can do it, it's the old saying, I can do it if you can do it. So let's hope that this catches on in a very big way. With that said, I really appreciate you coming on. It's been great. I appreciate it. I appreciate what you're doing.

I hope you get as big as Joe Rogan because I think this is information and this is awareness that I think is so important. I look at what we're doing as changing the world, right? I have such a big view and I'm not able to do it by myself, but people like you and other people that are in this space, just a little bit more and more at some point, we're going to make a big impact. Yes, I truly believe so. And again, thanks for coming on. It's been great. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com.

Contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone everywhere about why not me the world, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere that you are not alone in this world.